The Art of Questioning in Coaching: Unleashing Collective Intelligence and Engaging People in a VUCA World

During the ICF certification program, I was asked to choose a subject related to coaching and share a dissertation about it. What immediately came to my mind was: at the heart of coaching, it’s about competence 6, it’s about Questioning!

Why this choice? Based on my professional experiences, I believe that the ability to question is crucial in today’s world:

• The more you grow, the more you need to get results through your teams by delegating, challenging, and inspiring them. To do so, you need to ask smart questions.
• We have less time to go deeper into subjects, so you need to ask the right questions.
• With fewer resources in organizations, you need to recruit and develop talents. Smart questions are essential during recruitment and for inspiring and challenging your talents.
• Complex issues require collective intelligence, which can be unleashed through question-storming to foster creativity and ownership.
• AI impacts knowledge and tasks, and you need to adapt and embrace new technologies. The new world is about intelligence, transformation, customer-centricity, and differentiation. Therefore, asking the right questions is key to maximizing the benefits of AI.

To cope with such challenges, todays and tomorrow’s leaders need to shift their approach and become servant leaders and coaches who master the art of listening and questioning.

To delve deeper into this dissertation, I will explore different dimensions of the issue:

1. Personal Experience: Sharing a learning experience during a crisis when there were no rules or guidelines. The only way to manage the situation was by trusting your teams and becoming a servant leader, using listening and questioning skills.
2. Enhancing People: The importance of questioning in enhancing people, drawing from a training session by Eric Blondeau(book “Nego”), expert on Negotiations.
3. Strategic Questioning: Insights from the Harvard Business Review article “The Art of Asking Smarter Questions” by Arnaud Chevallier, Frédéric Dalsace, and Jean-Louis Barsoux on the importance of asking strategic questions in decision-making processes.
4. Relevance in Coaching: How these learnings and insights are relevant in coaching?

A. Personal Experience

Throughout my professional career of over 30 years in various geographies, companies, and environments, I learned one thing: it’s all about our ability to manage people and our ecosystem! Solving problems, dealing with complexity, and establishing strategies are all related to your ability to understand:

• The cultures and internal decision-making processes of countries and companies.
• The expectations of your shareholders and ecosystem.
• The dynamics of your business and work environment.
• The capabilities of your organization.
• The mindset and ambitions of your people and customers.
• Your ability to manage your own work-life balance.

Companies excel in training their leaders to handle such challenges. They implement governance and KPIs for decision-making processes to minimize risks and align with the vision. Experience reinforces our ability to perform and become respected experts. Experts know because they have experienced many proven solutions and managed complex issues. We become problem solvers, relying on guidelines and best practices. We are disciplined people, acting as followers with formatted academic education, universal values, and ways of doing, repeating the same models of thinking. Our mission is to align our people and organization towards strategies and visions. Companies reward good leaders who deliver results, know their business by heart, and promote the company’s image externally and internally.

However, in new situations such as crises in unknown territories, it becomes more complex to deal with such high level of anxiety and danger. This is what I experienced in Egypt during the Arab Spring (2011-2013) when everything collapsed in one day, with no safety, security, rules, or state, plunging into chaos! Many company leaders decided to leave the country with their families out of fear and care for expatriate families. Others who stayed were unable to manage the disorder because it’s not written in any management book or training how to deal with such volatile and dangerous situations. The company headquarters were unable to provide guidelines or top-down decisions and advices.

My takeaway from that transformative experience: I learned the real sense of care and leadership! According to my boss’s feedback at that time, I transformed myself from a disciplined controlling manager to a servant leader, spending 90% of my time caring for our teams, inquiring about their well-being, and asking how we could help them. Every day, I talked to our customers about their teams, the safety of the roads for truck drivers, etc. I regularly communicated with our partners and even our competitors to secure our crucial role in supplying food for the population, sharing even raw materials with those in shortage.

In other words, I learned the meaning of responsibility, ownership, care, and leadership, focusing on what matters! I was close to others, caring about them, and listening to see how I could help. My second learning is that capable teams with the right level of empowerment are crucial. In crisis times, local teams know the reality of the ground; it’s about their life and survival, and they know how to deal with realities. Such extreme Crisis management changed my perception and behavior: it’s no longer a top-down process but a bottom-up discussion in crisis management follow-ups. By acknowledging this, my teams felt accountable and responsible, doing a marvelous job during many months of political and economic turmoil.

My main takeaway is that since that time, I understood the meaning of servant leadership: the importance of having talented teams and spending my time being close to them, listening, and challenging them to enhance their capabilities. This shift required humility and setting aside my ego to be a trusted advisor and caring manager. I developed a strong conviction that teams know how to do things, and my role is to help them go beyond, grow, and care for their teams. To do so, there is only one way: through listening and questioning skills!

You change from old habits, when you don’t have choice (survival situations, work life balance.) and when you understood the deep reality! It’s about Self-awareness!

B. Enhancing People

The second dimension of my dissertation is about the importance of enhancing people and how questioning is key. In this part, I would like to reference Eric Blondeau’s book “Negotiation”. I had the chance to spend six days training with Eric Blondeau, benefiting from his knowledge and research on the theme of “how to influence others to adapt my solution while respecting their way of thinking.” This training was a game-changer in the way I deal with people. Here are some takeaways from this experience:

To understand and manage people and customers, it is essential to comprehend their perceptions and motivations. As human beings, we are different, and we need to understand the gaps and singularities. To motivate others, it’s crucial to “talk to people” as “I want people to be interested in “ME” and my future benefits.” This involves understanding the mental projection of individuals and accessing their brains. The only way to do so is by using questioning.

To go deeper, let’s look at how the brain operates. The brain functions at three levels of consciousness:

• Reptilian (self-preservation) with fast reactions.
• Limbic (social survival, automatic brain storing memories, values, education) with slow reactions (a few seconds).
• Neocortex (able to adapt for the future and uncertainties, perspectives) with very slow reactions as it needs to think.

The brain does not resist to questions. The questions that make a difference are those addressed to the Neocortex level, as they push for reflection, thinking, and creativity. The main barrier, however, is that we are not trained to ask questions, and sometimes fears prevent us from asking. Even when we do ask questions, they are often closed, guided or with judgment.

Listening and questioning are linked. Good leaders usually spend 80% of their time asking questions, as the one asking the questions usually is the one driving the discussion and leading the “show”.

 Here are some important listening and questioning behaviors and attitudes:

• No judgment and no selective listening! We are only allowed to have opinions!
• Invite to a discussion and be concentrated!
• Open questions to better understand the intention!
• No fear when asking questions!
• Listen to people’s needs!
• The other person always has an unconscious demand or message!
• Put aside your ego, avoid talking about “me”, listen and ask questions !
• People are open books that need to be explored: ask questions!
• Being in control and in a “joy-peace emotion” allows you to  project the future..
• In a VUCA world, adapt intelligence versus constantly using the automatic brain
• Questioning should have an intention, a scope, and a territory to enhance the relationship:
• Intention: I’m interested in “You” and I don’t talk about “Me.” It’s towards others (I want to discover, listen, and create a link based on care).
• Scope: There is a scope of the question.
• Territory: Be focused.

Smart questions should be addressed with the objective to elaborate, targeting the Neocortex brain to allow projection and reflection. Doing so will position you as a “legitimate” and “trusted advisor.”

Since that training, I have trained my teams on these principles and guidelines. By shifting my attitudes and behaviors towards the listening and questioning philosophy, my relationship with my teams has drastically changed!

My governance meetings are now structured around listening and questions with future projections. It’s about moments on how I can help my team members deliver and tackle their challenges as a servant leader. As a result, there is a better work-life balance and motivated teams, as they feel accountable for their business. They are increasingly convinced to use questioning with their teams!

This learning and these insights remind me of the book “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” by Marilee Adams. The book emphasizes the transformative power of questioning and how it can lead to personal and professional growth. It explores the idea that changing the way we ask questions can significantly impact our mindset, problem-solving abilities, and overall success. By shifting from a judgmental or limiting mindset to one that is curious and open, individuals can unlock new possibilities and solutions.

C. Strategic and types of Questioning

The third dimension of my dissertation is based on insights shared in the Harvard Business Review article “The Art of Asking Smarter Questions” by Arnaud Chevallier, Frédéric Dalsace, and Jean-Louis Barsoux. The article sheds light on the importance of asking strategic questions in decision-making processes. The authors emphasize the need for business professionals to be formally trained in the skill of asking smart questions, especially in the face of increased urgency and uncertainty in today’s organizations and fast shifting would (VUCA).

They propose a practical framework for different types of questions, categorizing them into five domains, that actually we could use in any situation beyond the business decision making processes.

1. Investigative Questions: Help clarify the purpose and understand the root causes of problems.
   • What happened?
   • What is and isn’t working?
   • What are the causes of the problem?
   • How feasible and desirable is each option?
   • What evidence supports our proposed plan?

1. Speculative Questions: Encourage reframing problems and exploring creative solutions.

1. • What other scenarios might exist?
   • Could we do this differently?
   • What else might we propose?
   • What can we simplify, combine, modify, reverse, or eliminate?
   • What potential solutions have we not considered?

1. Productive Questions: Assess the availability of resources and influence decision-making speed.

1. • What is the next step?
   • What do we need to achieve before taking it?
   • Do we have the resources to move ahead?
   • Do we know enough to proceed?
   • Are we ready to decide?

1. Interpretive Questions: Enable synthesis and sense-making.

1. • What did we learn from this new information?
   • What does it mean for our present and future actions?
   • What should be our overarching goal?
   • How does this fit with that goal?
   • What are we trying to achieve?

1. Subjective Questions: Address personal reservations and hidden agendas.

1. • How do you really feel about this decision?
   • What aspect of it most concerns you?
   • Are there differences between what was said, what was heard, and what was meant?
   • Have we consulted the right people?
   • Are all stakeholders genuinely aligned?

Each type of question serves a specific purpose in uncovering information, exploring possibilities, and addressing personal reservations and hidden agendas that can impact decision-making.

My takeaway from this reading is about the evolving leadership style of individuals like Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who has shifted towards asking more questions and probing his management team to explore ideas they hadn’t considered.

As I mentioned in the previous dimensions of this dissertation, this is another angle to highlight the importance of leaders embracing listening, curiosity, learning, and humility—qualities critical to skillful interrogation.

I found it quite interesting to use this structure of questions as a reference and self-assessment tool, as proposed by the authors. By assessing how we feel in each type of question (on a scale from 1 to 5), we can then elaborate our own action plan and focus areas for improvement based on the areas where we don’t perform well.

 D. Relevance of Questioning in Coaching

The last part of my dissertation will discuss how these questioning learnings and insights are relevant in coaching. As a conclusion of the above parts, I would mention the following important points:

Through different angles and dimensions, I have shared the importance of questioning and listening skills:

• My strong conviction: It’s all about people and our ability to embrace change and adopt a different posture when dealing with people and problems.
• Self-awareness: Recognizing the importance of change for yourself and your ecosystem is crucial. Changing your old habits will allow you to embrace your new role as a trusted advisor and servant leader who is interested in people development.
• Interest in others: Being genuinely interested in others (not about “me”) is essential. Understanding brain functioning helps to better grasp the necessity of listening and questioning new behaviors to adopt.
• Structured questions tool: I shared a structured questions tool from HBR to deal with decision-making processes in companies. This tool can be used in many areas, including coaching discussions and processes, to unleash creativity and ownership in a VUCA world.

When I decided to pursue a coaching certification and coaching career, it was because some of the coaching concepts are ones I share and have used during my various assignments and career as a servant leader. I believe that with the use of more complete and proven coaching techniques and systems, I can further help others grow. Being a coach is about being interested in others while being humble and putting aside one’s own ego.

I have built my coaching definition taking into account all these learnings and insights: “Coaching is a guided process that enables a person to achieve their own objectives and unlock their full potential through self-awareness and transformative learnings.”

To link this with my dissertation subject, to be efficient as a coach able to guide the coaching process, there are two important competencies a coach needs to master:

• Competency 6: Listens Actively
  • Focuses on what the client is and is not saying to fully understand what is being communicated in the context of the client systems and to support client self-expression.
• Competency 7: Evokes Awareness
  • Facilitates client insight and learning by using tools and techniques such as powerful questioning, silence, metaphor, or analogy.

The relationship between listening and questioning is interconnected in coaching. Effective questioning begins with attentive listening, which allows coaches to understand the needs and messages of individuals. By asking open questions and demonstrating a genuine interest in understanding the other person, coaches can build trust and establish themselves as legitimate and trusted advisors. The ability to attract attention, listen, and question after listening is essential for effective coaching.

The art of asking smarter questions involves strategic questioning with intentionality. In the VUCA world, Leaders need to become coaches, and they need to pilot the questions, elaborating on limbic and neocortex aspects to enhance relationships and explore new territories. By embracing the art of asking smarter questions, coaches can navigate the complexities of the modern world and lead individuals and teams towards success and self-awareness.

I would mention the following summary from “Coaching for Performance” by Sir John Whitmore, focusing on the following: In coaching, questioning plays a crucial role in facilitating the client’s self-discovery, problem-solving, and goal-setting. Effective questioning techniques can help coaches guide their clients to explore their thoughts, feelings, and perspectives, leading to increased self-awareness and clarity. Open-ended questions are often used to encourage deeper reflection and insight, while powerful questions can challenge assumptions and stimulate new ideas. Additionally, the use of questioning can help coaches build rapport, demonstrate active listening, and foster a collaborative coaching relationship.

To complete my dissertation, I would like to share a watch out: In a changing world, coach is to continuously build curiosity and resist the “old habits” of acting as a mentor or relying on closed questions and judgments. It’s about stepping out of the comfort zone by:

• Visiting new locations, countries, or civilizations: This forces humility, curiosity, and the need to ask questions, as you don’t know everything.
• Frequently asking for feedback: This signals humility and a listening attitude.
• Utilizing trusted advisors: Coaches should exchange and receive feedback from “trusted advisors.” Generally, family members are very valuable and fair when providing feedback.
• Embracing moments of silence and self-awareness: Activities like yoga, sports, and reading can help.
• Accepting that we are all different: Commit to discovering who the other person is.
• Acting as a servant leader: Be willing to help by asking questions.

Being customer-centric: Don’t talk about “me”; show care and focus on the client.